Tehran, Iran, July 11
By Mehdi Sepahvand – Trend:
Iran’s Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh says that there is little hope that a change will happen in the burdensome taxes that Iranian industrialists pay to the Social Security Organization.
“The issue is a thing of law and changing it is not so easy,” he told Trend in Tehran on the sidelines of a conference marking Iran’s Industry Day.
According to the law, an amount equal to 30 percent of the wages paid by Iranian enterprises has to be paid to the Social Security Organization for insurance. Many doubt that the insurance should cost so much.
Nematzadeh said “a systemic change is needed” to address the issue.
His comments come as industrialists are anticipating a meeting with the Social Security Organization and its parent – Ministry of Labor.
The meeting was promised by officials of the Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade, as well as the Parliament due to the repeated objections of the industrialists over the burden that the taxation has imposed on them.
Recently, Chairman of Razavi Khorasan Textile Association Ebrahim Dehqan has said there are other insurance companies that would offer the same insurance for half of what the Social Security Organization charges.
Meanwhile, one of the industrialists has recently said the heavy taxation deprived him and his likes in the industrial sector of the chance to allocate any budget to research and development programs and run their industries.
In 2014, the Iranian parliament said in a report that corruption was widespread in the Social Security Organization in 2011-2013, when the organization was headed by Saeed Mortazavi.
The 84-page report by the Special Parliamentary Probe Committee included 37 cases of bribery and illegal handouts.
One such case entailed 1.335 billion rials ($43,266) “taken from the internal budget of the organization after being authorized by the head of the organization, and was given to 37 MPs [report included code numbers but no actual names] as gift cards.”